Sunday, March 10, 2013

First Blood

WARNING:I’ve hunted
most of my life. It involves blood, and sometimes it isn’t pretty.You may not want your young kids to read
this.

Due to poor planning, unforeseen travels, weddings and
funerals, I missed out on the rifle hunting season last fall. I just didn’t get
a chance to get out. However, there is a late bow hunt for deer and elk in some
of the units. Now, I haven’t bow hunted in several years but I used to enjoy it
a lot. There was an early hunt in September and the weather was always great.
The aspen trees were bright yellow and the pines a deep green. I could hunt the
early mornings and late evenings and lay in the sun during the warm afternoons.
The late hunt in November and December required more clothes and some planning
to stay warm when sitting, and cool when climbing the mountains. Some of my
best memories are of these bow hunts.

I dug my old Martin Firecat out of the shed and looked it
over. It was in pretty good shape but I needed a new string and a few arrows. The
release still looked good and worked well with a little oil on it. The release
straps onto your right hand and it has a latch to hold onto the bow string. The
latch holds the string tight while drawing the bow back to shoot. On the
release there is a trigger mechanism, not unlike a rifle, that you squeeze with
your index finger to let loose the string and fire the arrow. The trigger
mechanism is smooth and has no drag or movement. It eliminates the problems
created when using your fingers directly on the string.A trip to the bow shop and I had a new string
and sight as well as a half dozen aluminum arrows.

There is an archery shooting range close to my office on the
north end of town. I had my bow in the truck and I drove over to the range one
day at lunch time. I pulled up to the range and noticed several cars already
parked there. I looked out at the range and there were 4 or 5 people shooting. There
are about ten different shooting lanes so I would probably be fine, but
something told me that I should wait.My
first time shooting this season should be just me. I hadn’t shot in a few years
and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of people. I have a pretty good sense about this type of
thing so I decided to wait and shoot another time. The people shooting had
fancy new bows and gadgets on them and my bow is probably twelve years old. I
watched from the truck for a minute and then went back to work.

A couple days later I went back to the range. Not a soul was
around and the wind was calm. I got ready and walk out on the range and picked
a 20 yard target to start on. I got my arrows out and snapped one on the
string. I locked the release around the string and checked to make sure it
held. I hadn’t shot for a while and the older bows require pretty good strength
to pull them back. I pointed the bow up in the air a little and began to haul
back on the string. About halfway back in my pull, something smashed into my
face. It hurt pretty badly and I was seeing stars for a second. I didn’t go
down but staggered back a little. It reminded me of getting in a fight when I
was a kid and blocking all the punches with my face. I looked out towards the
range and saw my arrow coming down out of the sky until it stuck straight up out
of the ground, Somehow, with the bow pulled halfway back, I had hit the
trigger, the string released, launching the arrow straight up.My hand slammed into my nose and face. As the
stars cleared from my eyes I realized that my nose was bleeding. There was
blood running down my face and I tried to stop it with my hands. I soon had
blood on both hands, my face and on my shirt. I stood around holding my nose
with my head back trying to stifle the bleeding. I walked out and got my arrow
and came back to the shooting area. When the blood stopped I was ready to try
again. I ended up shooting pretty well that day and got the bow sighted in at
20 and 30 yards. I knew I shouldn’t stay too long because if someone came and
saw the blood everywhere they might start asking questions, and how do you explain
something like that?I was also happy
that the ol’ warning light had told me not to shoot the first time with other
people around. When I do really stupid things, it’s kind of nice to not have an
audience gawking and laughing.Experience is a good thing I guess.Anyway, I shot a couple more times during the week and did pretty well.
Next year, I might even go hunting with that bow.

Wit & Wisdom

Einstein quotes in bold:If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once

If I had my life to live over again, I’d be a plumber

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.

I do not know with what weapons world war three will be fought, but world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

There are two ways to live your life – one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.

I am convinced that He does not play dice.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

Peace cannot be achieved through violence; it can only be attained through understanding.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

People love chopping wood. In this activity, one immediately sees results.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war

Two things inspire me to awe – the starry heavens above and the moral universe within.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.

End of Einstein quotes

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Thomas Jefferson

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood. William Penn

The best angle from which to approach any problem is the Try-angle.

We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

And to paraphrase Chris Farley in the movie Tommy Boy, "the only reason they have a guarantee is because they knowthey sold you a guaranteed piece of crap!"

If you avoid difficult things, great things will avoid you.

I was born with nothing and I still have most of it left.

People buy what they want and beg for what they need.

That which you persist in doing becomes easier, not because the nature of the task changes, but because your power to do increases. Yoda or Ralph Waldo Emerson

Scrabble is a lot like life. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an “i”.

Time wounds all heels

The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. Fran Lebowitz

If you make every game a life-and-death proposition, you’re going to have problems. For one thing, you’ll be dead a lot. Dean Smith

It is the weak who are cruel, and gentleness is only to be expected from the strong. Leo Rosten

He recovered from that well, rising from the ashes like a sphincter. Craig Charles

"It is admirable for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for the father who takes his daughter shopping." -John Sinor

"Sherman madethe terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could... adopted a role called 'Being a Father' so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life." -Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

"Whatever you are, be a good one." -Abraham Lincoln

"There must be many fathers around the country who have experienced the cruelest, most crushing rejection of all: Their children have ended up supporting the wrong team." -Nick Hornby

"My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, 'You're tearing up the grass.' 'We're not raising grass,' Dad would reply. 'We're raising boys.' " -Harmon Killebrew

"You don't put kids under surveillance: It might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze." -Garrison Keillor

"When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in only 7 years." -Mark Twain

"Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express."-Joseph Addison

Not all those who wander are lost. J. R. R. Tolkien

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. Aristotle

We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. Will Rogers

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twian

Don’t think you’re on the right road just because it’s a well beaten path.

Drunkenness is simply voluntary insanity. Seneca

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity. Rollo May

If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’s be a shortage of fishing poles. Doug Larsen.

Men are respectable only as they respect. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. Robert Fulghum

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. C. S. Lewis

It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it worth it. - A League of Their Own.

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor. Robert Frost

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. James Michener

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. George Santayana

Do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. Galileo Galilei (born 15 February 1564)

What happens if you get scared half to death, twice?

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. Bill Watterson

Self Government won’t work without Self discipline. Paul Harvey

The love of wisdom, prizes the wise man over the wise ass.

Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. Plato

Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. Aristotle

Let not him who girds on his armor boast as one who takes it off. – The Chosen

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. Mark Twain

Why do we park in driveways and drive on Parkways

Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become. Walter Williams

The first casualty of any war is always the truth. “Where Men Win Glory - The Odyssey of Pat Tillman”